ralph miliband, "state power and class interests" (1983)

(57): guiding question--"how great a degree of autonomy does the state have in capitalist society?"

(58): two views in Marx

1. State as instrument of a ruling class
2. State as 'independent from and superior to all social classes' (Bonapartism as extreme example)

(58): in dialogue with Poulantzas, a distinction, Miliband is arguing, had to be made between:

1. the State acting on behalf of the ruling class (defensible)
   
2. the State acting on behest of the ruling class (vulgar deformation)

(59): the question of whether Marxist theories share a problematic with democratic pluralist views of the State [this is what Block and Offe are concerned with, too]

(60): Theda Skocpol's view of the State, two readings (first favorable, second excessive)

1. the interests that the State may have, on its own, and the question of how that intersects with the interests of the ruling class (important amendment, miliband is saying)
   
2. the possibility that the State possesses interests that are fundamentally opposed to the interests of all forces in society (excessive conception of autonomy)

(61-62): at some level, my reading is that he is suggesting here that, in Marxism thus far, there have been, in a sense, two sources of the autonomy of the State:

1. class struggle--the extent to which struggle challenges the hegemony of the ruling classes
2. also, functional--to better serve the existing order and the dominant class
   

(61): US as the country which comes closest to total capitalist hegemony (no feudal heritage, weak labor movement)

(62): key--this does not satisfy him--yes, the foregoing bit about sources of autonomy is important, and yes, the dynamic of State action is explained by the imperative requirements of capitalism and the pressure of captialists--but this is not the whole story. there are to main impulses that give the State an 'autonomous' kind of interest [whereas the previous autonomy had everything to do with capitalism, in a sense, this is more about the State, it seems]

1. self-interest--people in power wish to retain it.
   
2. the 'national interest', as a motivation for those in power [this is much weaker than the first, I think--can be thought of as a 'legitimation', in fact. for the 'national interest' is naught but ideology, surely]

(64): "these twin concerns encompass, or at least seek to encompass, capitalist class interests: but this is not the same as saying that state action and these class interests coincide."

(65): and thus, key: he is going to argue we must think of this as a "partnership between two different, separate forces, linked to each other by many threads, yet each having its own separate sphere of concerns" [this loses so much of the force, really--no conception of the inequality and the deep differences between the two institutions. the State is much more dependent on the capitalist class, than the other way around, surely? unless we are thinking of a State which owns sources of surplus? and is even that sufficient? quite confusing formulation, i think]

(65): we have to find space between, in short, a 'class-reductionist' position and a 'state-reductionist' one. "I seek to avoid both forms...", in speaking of a partnership.

(66): Skocpol, and the State living 'for itself'

(67): mistakes of Statecraft are not evidence of 'fundamental disagreements' between the ruling class and the capitalist class [two examples: war in Vietnam, and Hitler's expansion]

the theory of the capitalist state (poulantzas and miliband)

up until the 1960s, in political science and sociology the reigning approach to the State was 'pluralism' (and it's still the dominant approach in the mainstream). this takes the State as a neutral actor; simply a site that takes in pressures and demands from outside groups, and acts accordingly (not necessarily a passive actor—but its direction comes from 'pressure groups', fundamentally)

it does not assign, to any particular pressure group, any advantage in access or influence. the list of potential pressure groups is quite large (students, employers, religious organizations, etc. – any 'civic' organization, which is pursuing its interests in an organized way).

politics, therefore, doesn't have any ex ante direction—all groups have potentially the same influence over state policy as any other group

around the 1960s, criticisms of this approach started to circulate.

in the US, you get C. Wright Mills ('a strange character').

it's Ralph Miliband's book, on the British state, which heralds this literature

primarily, this 'radical' approach attacks the illusion that no one pressure group has an ex ante advantage. simply put, because lobbying and pressure takes resources, groups that have greater resources will have a structural advantage in the political process.

in fact, there are four nested arguments, here:

1. social origins, recruitment from elite circles-- the highest echelons of State mangers, in the US, are recruited out of the corporate sector; in Britain, the civil service plays this role.

2. social networks—even if the social origins aren't aligned, the social networks into which these folks are cast define their buddies, allies, etc. (kids in private schools, etc.)

3. lobbying—in the form of think-tanks/advice, as well as the more obvious forms (in the US, any crucial legislation that's drawn up on business is drawn up by thinktanks—the simple reason for this, of course, is because lawmakers are idiots). expertise belongs to the people that run the economy.

4. finance—in the US, there are two elections, every four years: the less important one is the one we know—before you get the votes, there's an initial competition over funders. before politicans compete over votes, they compete over funders. cannot say anything that gives the impression they will act against the interests of their funders.

these four, taken together, have come to be known as the 'instrumentalist' theory of the State. the State is being wielded by the State, as an instrument (the capitalist class control the State apparatus—their physical proximity to the State, 'claims' over the State constitute their authority). this is to be contrasted to the 'structuralist' theory of the State, which we will come to.

vivek, however, is noting that the four 'instrumentalist' claims are better understood as a 'structuralist' theory (because the notion of unequal resources demands a 'structural' understanding, most obviously).

important--at the same time, it does share an important commonality with 'pluralism', which is that the State is more-or-less neutral (that all of these influences/pressures come from without, in a sense). it is, in some sense, a 'thing' to be wielded, even still. where they differ from pluralists is that they believe that certain pressure groups have structural advantages.

this is what Poulantzas is objecting to, principally (and others, too).

important--the political implications of the 'instrumentalist' view obviously problematic. the notion is that the institutions of the State can be changed, if the nature of the navigator and the maps change. the State is simply a machine, in a sense. it is a distinction understood, for example, as “the State in Capitalism” vs. “the Capitalist State” [the notion, of course, is that the State has to be smashed—that it

is intrinsically biased towards the interests of elites]

so what's the argument?

the challenge for structuralist state theory has been to adduce mechanisms which incline it toward dominant class interests. something about the State's very institutional structure that biases it toward capitalists' intrests.

what is Poulantzas' argument?

he begins by noting that the Capitalist State is characterized by a structural fact about the capitalist economy—which is that the extraction of the surplus does not require the use of political power to extract the surplus. feudalism, of course, works differently. in capitalism, force is not required—the 'dull compulsion' of economic relations is sufficient.

what, then, is the function of the State, under Capitalism? it switches from being an actor in extraction—instead, it manages the 'effects' of surplus extraction. it strives to be the factor of cohesion; it is what keeps the whole thing together. (this is compatible with the pluralist notion, vivek is arguing—it 'manages' difference. in other words, we can't stop here)

the question of its complicity in elites' interests, of course, relies on Poulantzas' argument that the 'way' in which it keeps things together is crucial.

in managing and organizing for the coherence of society, the State becomes a bourgeois state by virtue of the fact that it reproduces capitalist relations of production. this is a political function, two-fold:

1. disorganizes the dominated classes.

2. organizes the dominant classes.

how does it do this?

for the dominated classes, two things:

1. constitutes them as 'formally equal' to their exploiters—it reinforces economic atomization with political atomization (this is very different from the Feudal State, which enshrines status distinctions). abstracts away from class to found the nation (we can think of this as a separate function).

2. disorganizes the dominated classes by allowing for economic concessions, to them. the root of what Lenin called 'economism'

notice, though, that this 'atomization' of subjects applies to everybody. left to itself, then, this is a mechanism that should equally effect both classes. so this disorganization has to be complemented by the selective organization of elites. this is where the theory gets murky, vivek's arguing.

Poulantzas argues that the State organizes the dominant classes by “the play of its institutions”. the first claim: the action of the State institutions have to have the effect of increasing the organization of the dominant classes. the second claim: capitalist classes exist as a bloc of classes, which means that it has to organize a differentiated mass—how is it, then, that the State organizes the dominant classes into a power bloc?

in almost every instance, though, in Poulantzas' book he is exceedingly vague on how the State institutions organize the dominant classes. rather, it seems more that the dominant classes act on the State, in his narrative (in effect, here you have to introduce the 'instrumentalist' claims to make this sensible, in a way—but this is precisely what he is writing against).

it is not clear that it is the State which is making them cohere as a dominant power bloc. there is no sense that it is the State which is doing the work.

this is a weakness of the theory—but it doesn't necessarily make this theory useless.

it does show that the State disorganizes the dominated classes, as an effect of its own reproduction. but the second dynamic is not justified, in his account.

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types of States (class character) vs. forms of State (within these class categories) – if the effect of disorganizing dominated classes is the task of the bourgeois state itself, it is hard to see how this could be true. this is an artifact of the 20^th century state—the bourgeois State has been around for four hundred years, and it was not the case that workers were formally equal to capitalists throughout this period. what Poulantzas is really describing, here, is the 'bourgeois-democratic' state. before this, it was the 'bourgeois-oligarchic' state.

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structured totality (Althusserian conception—each part has its own integral logic) vs. expressive totality (everything is a jumble, expressing the overwhelming influence of the 'essence')

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functional vs. intrinsic definition of a concept

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'contradictoriness' of State intervention? certainly, every effect of the State is not an 'intended' effect; how do you account for this? 'functional' vs. 'accidental'?

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Althusser was the first Western Marxist who argued that Marxism must be a 'science' (unlike the Frankfurt School and Lukacs). Yet his actual epistemology was fundamentally 'idealist' – 'generality 1, generality 2, generality 3'. Concepts working on concepts generating theories—so you have claims of science, rhetorical, that don't prove to be worth anything, philosophically. People who take the rhetoric seriously and abandon the philosophy became good Marxists. People who take the philosophy seriously become poststructuralists (Laclau/Mouffe).

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Summary remarks: we're trying to understand whether the State, by its very institutional structure, is implicated in class power. Poulantzas is one attempt. Next week we will look at three reasons that this might be the case: Offa, Miliband, Bloch.

ralph miliband, the capitalist state: reply to poulantzas (1969)

(55): absolutely spot on (first problem, method)--"To put the point plainly, I think it is possible, in this field at least, to be so profoundly concerned with the elaboration of an appropriate ‘problematic’ and with the avoidance of any contamination with opposed ‘problematics’, as to lose sight of the absolute necessity of empirical enquiry, and of the empirical demonstration of the falsity of these opposed and apologetic ‘problematics’. Poulantzas declares himself not to be against the study of the ‘concrete’: I would go much farther and suggest that, of course on the basis of an appropriate ‘problematic’, such a study of the concrete, is a sine qua non of the kind of ‘demystifying’ enterpiise which, he kindly suggests, my book accomplishes. After all, it was none other than Marx who stressed the importance of empirical validation (or invalidation) and who spent many years of his life in precisely such an undertaking; and while I do not suggest for a moment that Poulantzas is unaware of this fact, I do think that he, and the point also goes for Louis Althusser and his collaborators, may tend to give it rather less attention than it deserves. This, I must stress, Is not a crude (and false) contraposition of empiricist versus non- or anti-empiricist approaches: it is a matter of emphasis—but the emphasis is important."

(56): cannot ignore the behaviors of managers, which doesn't mean that you think they are constitutive of capitalism: "I think myself that one must refer to both not because managerial ‘motivations’ are in themselves critical (and Poulantzas is mistaken in believing that I think they are) but precisely in order to show why they are not. By ignoring them altogether, one leaves a dangerous gap in the argument which needs to be put forward against managerialist apologetics."

(57): key, the crux of difference on the nature of the state (second problem)--"For what his exclusive stress on ‘objective relations’ suggests is that what the state does is in every particular and at all times wholly determined by these ‘objective relations’: in other words, that the structural constraints of the system are so absolutely compelling as to turn those who run the state into the merest functionaries and executants of policies imposed upon them by ‘the system’. At the same time, however, he also rejects the ‘long Marxist tradition (which) has considered that the State is only a simple tool or instrument manipulated at will by the ruling class’ (p. 74). Instead, he stresses the ‘relative autonomy of the state’. But all that this seems to me to do is to substitute the notion of ‘objective structures’ and ‘objective relations’ for the notion of ‘ruling’ class. But since the ruling class is a dominant element of the system, we are in effect back at the point of total subordination of the state élite to that class; i.e. the state is not ‘manipulated’ by the ruling class into doing its bidding: it does so autonomously but totally because of the ‘objective relations’ imposed upon it by the system. Poulantzas condemns the ‘economism’ of the Second and Third Internationals and attributes to it their neglect of the State (p. 68). But his own analysis seems to me to lead straight towards a kind of structural determinism, or rather a structural super-determinism, which makes impossible a truly realistic consideration of the dialectical relationship between the State and ‘the system’."

(58): clearly this is not what happens to Poulantzas, but the point is fair: "The political danger of structural super-determinism would seem to me to be obvious. For if the state élite is as totally imprisoned in objective structures as is suggested, it follows that there is really no difference between a state ruled, say, by bourgeois constitutionalists, whether conservative or social- democrat, and one ruled by, say, Fascists."

(58): important--"It is perfectly true that all states are in some degree ‘autonomous’, and Poulantzas misreads me when he suggests that I ‘finally admit this autonomy only in the extreme case of Fascism’ (p. 74). What I do say is that Fascism is the extreme case of the state’s autonomy in the context of capitalist society, which is not at all the same thing— and that between the kind of autonomy which is achieved by the state under Fascism, and that which is achieved by it under the conditions of bourgeois democracy, there is a large gulf, which it is dangerous to underestimate."

(59): critical (the third problem, ideology)--"But I also think that, just as it is necessary to show that the institutions mentioned earlier are part of a system of power, and that they are, as Poulantzas says, increasingly linked to and buttressed by the state, so is it important not to blur the fact that they are not, in bourgeois democracies, part of the state but of the political system. These institutions are increasingly subject to a process of ‘statization’; and as I also note in the book, that process is likely to be enhanced by the fact that the state must, in the conditions of permanent crisis of advanced capitalism, assume ever greater responsibility for political indoctrination and mystification. But to suggest that the relevant institutions are actually part of the state system does not seem to me to accord with reality..."